


Broken Back Sea

by Marystormshade



Series: Days Gone By [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Character Death, Drabble Collection, Gen, High Chaos, Oneshot, Paralysis, alternative ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-09
Updated: 2013-12-09
Packaged: 2018-01-04 03:11:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1075837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marystormshade/pseuds/Marystormshade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This is the end of the flicker of time, the brief hot fuse of events and ideas set off, accidentally, and snuffed out, accidentally. Not a real ending, nor even a beginning. A mere ripple in the stream as it flows over and past him."</p><p>Corvo takes a fall and reaches towards the sea in comfort.<br/>A thousand possible missteps, and this is just one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Back Sea

**Author's Note:**

> My first posting on Archive of Our own. Anyway, enjoy!

The cusp of consciousness tickles his eyelids as he wakes slowly. 

He remembers the fall. 

The blink had been fast, unplanned. Up the wall to the roof, hands grasping for a hold and not finding one, weepers and rats below hissing their appraisal. His feet kicked out beneath him, trying to hook to something, but still he tumbles down.The ground was only so far below him, he could make it out through the grunge of self awareness that pushed in on him, he could feel how fast he was falling and if he really thinks he can hear his scream as he hits-

Corvo takes this moment to look down at himself. It’s a sickening grief that overtakes him when he realizes that he can’t feel his legs, not the chill of water that assaults them even now, not the splinter of skin and bone that soaks into the dirt and grime beneath him. He doesn’t even feel the rats nestled along his calf. 

The muscles of his neck ache as he rolls his head to the right, a chore in itself, trying to gather himself. His sword is half hidden, coated thoroughly in rat shit and muck from the slow churning waters of the flooded district. He reaches toward it and cries out as a raw heat gravitates from it. It is red and bleeding, small bites and scratches pocky marked along the exposed skin. His lips curl at the thought of his body, torn apart so easily. 

He stays where he is, breathing slow and oddly timed, like the wind in the winter. He loses track of time. He imagines the Outsider watching him, laughter on his lips. His mask is broken and stuck to his slick face.

He gathers himself, expanding what little body he controls and grips with his fingers. The pain bit, and when pain bites men bargain. He twists and turns, pleads and begs with hushed breaths pressed against damp and hard ground, teeth tight against each other. He is reminded of coldridge, of his whimpers to the men with the hot irons and tongs, a burn he couldn’t escape. He curls his lips.

At the end of the first day he’s moved ten feet closer to the sea.

Xxxx

As he sleeps he see’s broken blackness. 

The Outsider speaks to him through Emily. 

(you’ll never save her)

Corvo, even in the void, is limited to an island no bigger than a dining table. He clenches his left hand and tries to move on, but he is pulled ferociously back each time.

(paralysis will take you, Havelock and Martin will tear the city to shreds, leaving the scraps for the rats. Treavor Pendleton will drink himself to death. You will drown)

The Outsider reaches for him with her hands, criss crossed with patterns of fingertips, all those that will use her. Her eyes bleed black and when she touches his chest Corvo crumples to the ground.

(she will scream your name)

He wakes to a numbness in his left hand and a pain along his spine. 

Xxxx

The purple and red congealment of his legs has turned rotten, the infection slows him as he pulls along by the nails on his fingers. His elixirs are long since gone and it is all he can do to keep going, to ignore the whispering, constant posturing, changing nothing. 

At night as he inched, the sky was a sea of black oil and dead things, no wind, no stirring. He understands then, that this is the end of the flicker of time, the brief hot fuse of events and ideas set off, accidentally, and snuffed out, accidentally. Not a real ending, nor even a beginning. A mere ripple in the stream as it flows over and past him. 

When he reaches the sea on the third day his throat is cracked and dry, body none responsive and he can no longer see past the red in his eyes. His mask is gone, having fallen off the second night. He doesn’t care. 

The sea does not like to be restrained, so when Corvo reaches toward it and grasps at its wetness, pulling his body in, legs changing from numb to uncomfortable (he’s just glad he can feel something), the sea grips him tight and drags him further out. His body rises with the water. Instead of kicking out to stay abreast, the push of air from his lungs sinks him to the bottom. The water muffles in his ears. He can feel it tear over his face, thinks about snorting the water into his lungs so it kills him faster, but he can't bring himself to do it. He blows bubbles from his mouth. 

(Relax).

His eyes close. Lungs burning.

His limbs are too heavy, have been for days, they are like anchors tugging him down slowly. He doesn't fight-can’t fight. He gasps in water and chokes out a salty sob as he closes his eyes.

(I will admit, I am disappointed. I had expected more)

The light from above, dancing on the surface of the water, becomes dimmer and Corvo imagines muffled footsteps overhead.


End file.
